SAWAI SHUJIRO

Scientific balloon flights can provide excellent opportunities for microgravity experiments. A balloon-drop microgravity experiment system, which is aiming for the experiment duration longer than 30 sec, is currently under development in ISAS/JAXA. The first flight of the microgravity experiment system was successfully performed in spring 2006. In this paper, the system configuration and the operation sequence of this system are reviewed. In addition to that, preliminary feasibility of a tethered balloon system for simplified short-term microgravity experiments is also studied. By using the tethered balloon, in exchange for the relatively short experiment duration, the operation cost for an experiment becomes drastically lower than that of a normal scientific balloon flight. The experiment system by using the scientific balloon is very promising for the microgravity experiments in terms of the reasonable cost and the experiment duration.

The magneto-plasma sail (mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion) produces the propulsive force due to the interaction between the artificial magnetic field around the spacecraft inflated by the plasma and the solar wind erupted from the Sun with a speed of 300-800 km/s. The principle of the magneto-plasma sail is based on the magnetic sail whose original concept requires a huge mechanical coil structure, which produces a large magnetic field to capture the energy of the solar wind. Meanwhile in the case of the magneto-plasma sail, the magnetic field will be expanded by the inertia of plasma flow to a few tens of kilometer in diameter, resulting in a thrust of a few Newton R. Winglee's group of the University of Washington originally proposed the idea of magnetic field inflation by the plasma. This paper investigates the characteristics of the magneto-plasma sail by comparing it with the other low-thrust propulsion systems (i.e., electric propulsion and solar sail), and the potential of its application to near future outer planet missions is studied. Furthermore, an engineering validation satellite concept is proposed in order to confirm the propulsion system specification and operation methodology. The main features are summarized as: (1) The satellite mass is around 180kg assuming the H-IIA piggyback launch. (2) Since the magnetopause of the Earth magnetosphere is about 10 Re at Sun side and the bow shock is located at about 13 Re from the Earth, the satellite is injected into an orbit with 250 km perigee altitude and 20 Re apogee distance where apogee is located at the Sun side. (3) The magneto-plasma sail is turned on only in the vicinity of apogee outside the Earth's magnetosphere. (4) The thrust is estimated by the orbit determination result, and the plasma wind monitor is installed on the satellite to establish the relationship between the solar wind and the thrust. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The first test flight of a new free-fall capsule released from high altitude balloon was performed on May, 2006 based on a drag-free technique. The fundamental data for analyzing the drag-free control, the flight sequence, and the wireless communication between the capsule and control room were successfully obtained in the flight.

This paper concerns the evaluation of a guidance and control system for lunar landing. The lander is required to land precisely at a site where there are scientifically important features, with minimal fuel consumption while avoiding surface obstacles such as rocks and small craters which might jeopardize the landing. This paper describes the desired guidance and control system of the lander and the landing sequence, which are modified from a previous lander configuration. The feasibility of the mission is demonstrated using Monte Carlo simulation.

The MUSES-C mission is the world's first sample and return attempt to/from the near Earth asteroid. In deep space, it is hard to navigate, guide, and control a spacecraft on a real-time basis remotely from the earth mainly due to the communication delay. So autonomy is required for final approach and landing on an unknown body. It is important to navigate and guide a spacecraft to the landing point without hitting rocks or big stones. In the final descent phase, cancellation of the horizontal speed relative to the surface of the landing site is essential. This paper describes various kinds of robotics technologies applied for MUSES-C mission. A global mapping method, an autonomous descent scheme, and a novel sample-collection method, and asteroid exploration robot are proposed and presented in detail. The validity and the effectiveness of the proposed methods are confirmed and evaluated by numerical simulations and some experiments.

The magneto-plasma sail (mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion) produces the propulsive force due to the interaction between the artificial magnetic field around the spacecraft inflated by the plasma and the solar wind erupted from the Sun with a speed of 300-800 km/s. The principle of the magneto-plasma sail is based on the magnetic sail whose original concept requires a huge mechanical coil structure, which produces a large magnetic field to capture the energy of the solar wind. Meanwhile in the case of the magneto-plasma sail, the magnetic field will be expanded by the inertia of plasma flow to a few tens of km in diameter, resulting in a thrust of a few N. R.Winglee's group of the University of Washington originally proposed the idea of magnetic field inflation by the plasma. This paper investigates the characteristics of the magneto-plasma sail by comparing it with the other low-thrust propulsion systems (i.e., electric propulsion and solar sail), and the potential of its application to near future outer planet missions is studied. Furthermore, an engineering validation satellite concept is proposed in order to confirm the propulsion system specification and operation methodology. The main features are summarized as: The satellite mass is around 180kg assuming the H-IIA piggyback launch. 2) Since the magnetopause of the Earth magnetosphere is about 10Re at Sun side and the bow shock is located at about 13Re from the Earth, the satellite is injected into an orbit with 250km perigee altitude and 20 Re apogee distance where apogee is located at the Sun side. 3) The magneto-plasma sail is turned on only in the vicinity of apogee outside the Earth's magnetosphere. 4) The thrust is estimated by the orbit determination result, and the plasma wind monitor is installed on the satellite to establish the relationship between the solar wind and the thrust.